Battle For Audiences

Tintin, Europe`s Superhero, Is Coming To America Via Hbo

November 01, 1991|By Kenneth R. Clark, Media writer.

Long before Superman, Batman and other American superheroes of comic book and film fame, there was Tintin, their wildly popular European predecessor who has thrilled imaginations on the other side of the Atlantic for 62 years.

He was, and is, a deceptively scrawny youth who can whip his weight in bobcats when pressed, and who once was cited by Charles de Gaulle as ``my only international rival.``

Tintin is a newspaper reporter by trade, but like the early version of his American colleague, Brenda Starr, he is never seen writing or filing a story. He dresses in knickerbockers, sports a blond cowlick reminiscent of Skeezix, pals around with a fox terrier named Snowy, and combines the wholesomeness of Jack Armstrong with the courage of Indiana Jones to battle evil-doers all over the world.

Now, courtesy of HBO, Tintin is coming to America to battle for audiences in an already crowded field of animated strips. He will make his hourlong debut at 6 p.m. Monday in an adventure titled ``The Crab With the Golden Claws,`` and Michael Hirsh, his co-producer, expects him to be a hit.

``I think this is the day for Tintin,`` Hirsh said. ``The strip is classy; it has a fine-arts look. There are so many cartoons today, and most of them look alike.

``A show like Tintin, that is visually different in an environment where there now are 40 or 50 channels blasting away at you, is going to be appreciated. It`s produced in a way that`s very compatible with the visual look of the book.``

Make that 24 books, written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, who worked under the pen-name Herge between 1929 when he created Tintin and his death in 1983.

In the six decades since Tintin`s birth, he has developed an American fan club that included the late artist Andy Warhol and ``Indiana Jones`` creator Stephen Spielberg, who, Hirsh said, initially owned screen rights to the storyline. Hirsh said about 100,000 Tintin books are sold every year in the U.S.

But bringing Tintin up to date as an animated strip for American audiences has been no easy chore. Herge did most of his drawing before and through World War II, when ethnic diversity was not a popular concept and his stereotyped depictions of blacks, Arabs and other minorities of the era would be taken as insensitive today.

``In the context when Herge was creating these stories in the `30s and

`40s, people weren`t as sophisticated and concerned about ethnic stereotyping,`` Hirsh said.

``So in adapting some of these stories, we had to focus on those aspects and satisfy ourselves that while remaining reasonably true to the work that we weren`t going to carry forward things that don`t translate or play today.``

Hirsh said that has meant ``walking a fine line`` between aficionados of the comic strip and ``at the same time, causing no offense to anyone.`` To accomplish that, he said, wherever possible in casting voices for the animated strip, he has turned to members of the ethnic community being depicted.

But Hirsh said that all the care in the world might not make Tintin an American hit if it were not for a burgeoning interest in things European.

``There are so many great American characters; the world doesn`t need another character,`` he said. ``But in the last five years, interest in Europe has grown radically. As the Europeans . . . become a stronger economic unity, we`ll start to export more of their product.``

``It all started quite innocently, with Perrier, and it ends up with Tintin,`` Hirsh said. ``From Perrier to Tintin means we`re a bit more open to something a bit foreign.``